If you’ve ever wondered how to develop a growth mindset, you’re already on the right track! Developing a growth mindset and learning how to embrace challenges will unlock your full potential and is essential for achieving success and happiness in all aspects of life.
The one consistent thing guaranteed in your life is change. If that’s not the most contradictory sentence ever, I don’t know what is! That being said, it’s a fact that in your life you will never stop evolving and learning in some capacity.
So many people believe that learning stops the second they are done school when that can’t be further from the truth. Sure, no one forces us to sit in classrooms, study for tests and pass exams, but that doesn’t mean we stop learning. In fact, learning just becomes 100x more fun after you aren’t forced into it!
And that is exactly why it’s so important to develop a growth mindset! Developing a growth mindset is all about embracing challenges, learning from failures, and believing that your abilities can be developed through hard work and dedication.
Why is a growth mindset important? Well, for starters, it can help you break out of that rut and start making progress toward your goals. It can also help you become more resilient in the face of challenges and setbacks, and more open to new ideas and experiences.
Who will benefit from a growth mindset?
The short answer: everyone!
There is absolutely no part of your life that won’t benefit from growth. Every single aspect can be improved on. Typically a growth mindset is thought of as important when talking about your career, or your business. We are taught that it’s important to study, to learn, to do well in school and in our careers. But that’s not the only area of your life that will benefit from growth and attention.
While yes, it’s important to grow in business, it’s also important to never stop improving in your relationships and health as well. A person with a growth mindset will embrace feedback, challenges and failures and will rise up and come up with creative solutions.
What Is A Fixed Mindset?
A fixed mindset is the opposite of a growth mindset. This applies to people who think that their abilities and intelligence are fixed traits and cannot be improved upon. This is extremely damaging and unfortunately extremely common.
Have you ever said “Im so bad at math, Im not smart enough to understand it” or “I cant start a blog, I don’t know how to write”? These are examples of a fixed mindset, and unfortunately these are thoughts most of us are familiar with.
Individuals with a fixed mindset are afraid of failure. They often avoid taking risks and trying new things because they may view mistakes as a reflection of their abilities rather than as opportunities for growth and learning.
This can be damaging and lead people to not reach their full potential. This is why catching these thoughts early on and working on changing your mindset is the first step to reaching the best version of yourself.
To put it simply, when people with a fixed mindset receive negative feedback a lot of the time it shakes them to their core because it damages their ego. A person with a growth mindset will recognize that failure is all part of the process and is needed for improvement.
The Ultimate Guide On How To Develop A Growth Mindset
Reflect and Journal
Trying to change your mindset is like trying to teach an old dog new tricks, but instead of a dog, it’s your brain, and instead of tricks, it’s your entire worldview. It’s hard. That is why journaling is so important when you are trying to essentially change your beliefs about yourself.
Journaling is a powerful tool that can help you reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and ultimately help you develop a growth mindset. By spending time with yourself putting pen to paper, you can identify your fixed mindset beliefs and challenge them with a growth mindset perspective. It’s will expedite your progress when you are trying to figure out how to develop a growth mindset within yourself.
It’s a time to spend getting to know yourself, and figuring out where you might be fixed in your mindset and why. Then figuring out how you can make improvements that will work for you long term. Plus, journaling allows you to track your progress and celebrate your successes, no matter how small.
Ask Yourself Questions
Asking yourself questions is a vital part of developing a growth mindset. Asking yourself questions also makes for a great journaling prompt if you are stuck not knowing what to write about.
Questions such as “What can I do differently?”, “What worked and what didnt?” and my personal favorite “What advice would you give to someone in the exact same situation?” are excellent for reflecting.
These questions allow you to be honest with yourself and see things from a different perspective. A lot of the time we already know the answers to our questions, but we are either afraid to admit the answers or are too stubborn to make any changes.
These questions will allow you to get to know yourself the way you would get to know a stranger. They will challenge your thinking and push you to explore further into your mind both of which are key to developing a growth mindset.
Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone
Growth does not happen when you are within your comfort zone. Let’s say that a little louder for the people in the back!
In all seriousness though, as long as you are comfortable, you won’t grow. It takes willpower, strength, and perseverance to change and make yourself better. It takes learning, opening up your mind to new ideas, and getting uncomfortable at times whether that be physical or mental.
People with a fixed mindset like comfort, they know what they like and they like what they know. There is no room for growth or change or bettering yourself in the comfort zone.
As an example, if you are trying to lose weight you know you will have to exercise and say no to some of your favorite foods. You know that will be uncomfortable. But that’s the fun, as long as you know your limits, discomfort can be a good thing. It means you are moving in the right direction.
So get out there and get uncomfortable. Don’t be afraid to put yourself outside of your comfort zone. And the more you push out, the bigger your comfort zone ring expands which means things get easier. What you used to think of as uncomfortable will soon feel like the norm!
Ready, Fire, Aim
This is a concept I heard in a Youtube video once and it really resonated with me.
The typical phrase goes “Read, Aim, Fire” which makes logical sense, but when we apply it to productivity it can be hindering. A lot of the time we spend so much time getting ready, and aiming for our intended purpose that we never end up firing.
Let’s say you want to start a small business, it’s logical to want to spend time getting ready, doing tons of research, and making everything perfect. And while yes, research is important, it becomes a problem when nothing actually gets done because you keep doing more and more research… or perfecting your website color pallet.
This is where the concept of Ready, Fire, Aim comes from. You need to get yourself ready and prepped, but then you have to fire and you can aim or readjust as you go. This way you are still moving in the right direction, while leaving room for growth, change, and new ideas.
Jeff Bezos has something he calls the 70% rule. It works like this: Whatever you’re trying to figure out, you should make your decision when you have 70% of the information you need in order to come to a conclusion. This is a similar concept to Ready, Fire, Aim because it gives you time to gather information, but you don’t need to know everything and have everything perfectly figured out before executing.
Education can be a form of procrastination, so next time you have a project you’re working on, gather just enough info to get you started, and readjust or aim along the way.
Learn to Love The Process
A growth mindset implies that you will never stop learning and growing as a person. This means that you absolutely need to love the process of working on yourself and working on your goals.
When you focus solely on the outcome, it’s easy to miss out on the learning, growth, and satisfaction that comes from the process. Progress is not always linear, and there will be highs and lows.
It’s easier said than done though, some days are by far more challanging that others. But more often than not the challanging days are the ones that you learn from the most. Hopefully that wasnt too cheesy for ya 😀
Don't Be An Innovator
This might sound like it contradicts the whole idea behind a growth mindset, but hear me out. This does NOT mean you need to stop coming up with new, great ideas. And this does not mean you have to stop challenging yourself.
What this does mean is that it’s just as important to learn from other people. Right now there are a million and one ways to learn online. You can read books, watch Youtube videos, hire a coach or take a course. The possibilities are endless!
Learning from other people and applying their concepts cuts your time exponentially and can boost your personal development. Instead of taking the time to learn everything from scratch, learn other peoples methods and then tweak them to what works for you on your growth journey.
Learn That Failing Is A Good Thing
You hear over and over from successful people that they didn’t just start out successful. Many of them have had countless failures in their lives until they came up with that one product or concept that was revolutionary.
Failing is important. It’s also a great reminder that nobody starts out knowing everything. After you’ve failed at something, it allows you to step back and take a look at the progress you made. What you did right, and what you did wrong.
This reflection is crucial for growth. And it allows you to come up with better ideas and avoid past mistakes the second time around. So never be discouraged from failure, take it as a sign that you did your best, you learned a ton of lessons, and you know the mistakes to avoid the second time around. Plus it mean you tried! And thats more than a lot of people can say for themselves.
I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, failing can feel devastating at times. But adopting a growth mindset means you see failure as a good thing because it means you put yourself out there, you learned and you grew as a person. At the end of the day the growth and knowledge you’ve gained is whats truly priceless.
Take Breaks When You Need Them
As much as growth is important, its also important to take breaks when you need them. Take some time off if you feel yourself buning out. Breaks are also necessary when you are consuming large amounts of new knowledge.
For me this also goes hand in hand with failing. I have personally failed at a few business ideas over the years and I wont lie, it was hard. I found myself taking long breaks after and going back to drinking, smoking weed, and playing video games. All of that is fine in moderation, but it would consume me fully and I found myself putting away the idea of productivity for weeks and sometimes months at a time.
These unhealthy breaks made me learn a huge lesson about myself. No matter what, no matter how long the break was, I eventually always found myself going back to the idea of bettering myself. I would start coming up with new ideas, and new ways of helping myself and others.
And that right there is the takeaway. Learn to take healthy breaks, learn that they don’t make you weak, and they shouldn’t only be taken when you are mentally exhausted and frustrated. Reframe them as a positive and necessary part of your growth mindset journey.
